Brider Kitchen: Slow rotisserie cooking, meet fast-casual

Brider is one of Denver Colorado’s best fast-casual rotisserie kitchens. In fact, their lamb and harissa sandwich just got voted for one of HuffPost’s Must-Eat Sandwiches In 15 Major U.S. Cities.

It’s no wonder. Two of Brider’s three co-owners, Steven Redzikowksi (executive chef) and Bryan Dayton (beverage director) are the same infamous team behind Colorado’s acclaimed restaurants, Acorn, OAK at fourteenth and Corrida. They bring their love of local, artisanal ingredients together in this seasonal market and fast-casual rotisserie restaurant.

We spoke with Brider’s third and equally talented co-owner, chef and general manager, Chase Devitt, to hear more about their seasonal, rotisserie dishes and learn how partnering with Foodee has changed the way they do business.

Brider Kitchen's shrimp, egg, and avocado bowl

Brider Kitchen: Slow rotisserie cooking, meet fast-casual

Chase Devitt does it all. He has a team of 30 people at Brider Rotisserie and Kitchen in downtown Denver, 20 of whom are in the kitchen and the rest run the front-of-house.

Before Brider, Chase was the chef at OAK at fourteenth. He tells us that he uses the same high-quality, local, seasonal and fresh market ingredients and creates similar all-American delicious meals at Brider to its sister restaurants.

“Whenever possible, we source our ingredients from local farmers in Denver, such as Red Wagon Farms and Isabelle Farms,” Chase Devitt, co-owner, GM and chef at Brider tells us. “I think people appreciate supporting local farms and, when it comes down to it, would prefer to avoid corporate restaurants and farms.”

One of the main differences between the group of owner-operated restaurants is that Brider aims to get the food out in ten minutes or less. Hence, fast-casual. Because they’re so quick to serve and feed their customers, Brider attracts a busy, on-the-go lunch crowd.

“We get more than 300 of downtown Denver’s business folks coming in for lunch during a three-hour window from 11 to 2 every day,” Chase explains.

How do they serve that many people high-quality food in such little time?

“We wanted to find a way to create a quality, local fast-casual menu without making everything to order (because that would slow us down),” Chase says. “The result is rotisserie. Most of our meals are cooked low and slow ahead-of-time, which requires a lot of planning, prep and cooking pre-rush.”

For example, chicken takes 45 minutes to cook to order. Brider’s busy lunch rush customers don’t have that kind of time. Instead, the kitchen staff cuts up half a rotisserie chicken, for example, that’s been slow cooking all morning and lays it on a bed of seasonal salad at the time of order.

Of course, this means that Chase and his team prepare for breakfast, lunch and dinner rush from the early morning onward to get ahead of orders. So if they’re busy working through 300-person lunch rushes, how are they expanding their peak-demand times, increasing business, reaching new markets and marketing themselves efficiently?

Brider Kitchen's chicken and veggie sandwich

Why Denver’s Brider Rotisserie and Kitchen partners with Foodee

Brider restaurant opened its doors in December 2015 and, by spring 2016, was partnered with Foodee.

“In the beginning, we were looking for a brand partner to market our menu and help us reach more customers to cater to,” Chase says. “Foodee is a trusted brand that only partners with local owner-operated businesses like ours so it made sense. We’re still with them because they’re good at marketing and, what’s great about Foodee, is that we get our catering orders a few days in advance so that we can staff, order and plan accordingly. We fill our Foodee catering orders ahead of the breakfast and lunch rush and make extra income by expanding each rush.”

“Most of our Foodee orders are for breakfast and lunch catering for office team orders of 10 to 40 people,” he says. “We pack up our orders in compostable and recyclable sustainable packaging and Foodee drivers pick it up and handle the catering from there. It’s easy and the additional income is always welcome.”

We asked Chase what our Foodee clients should order for lunch catering from Brider. He said “Anything rotisserie.”

Thank you for chatting with us, Chase!

Filed Under: Foodee HQ